Cold Fire

by blackcat

Chapter Three

Ponyville was normally a serene and relaxed town and even dozens of changelings and guardsponies, searching for entertainment and Sunset Shimmer respectively, could do little to mar that. Both groups did their best not to alarm the locals or each other as they went about their business leaving the atmosphere filled with polite but mounting tension. Mostly provided by the residents whose tempers were rapidly fraying despite the best efforts of the visitors.

Timber, the changeling in charge of the Swarms architects and saboteurs, paced outside of Sugarcube Corner dividing his attention between trying to figure out the reason for it's distinct design and watching his King treat Spike and Starlight to lunch at a nearby fancy restaurant. The group sat alone at one of the outside tables, the guards Thorax had brought with them, for his friends protection more than his own, repelling any pony that would want to near them. The presence of soldiers, pony and changeling alike (although they were there for peaceful purposes every adult changeling was a trained soldier. Civilians were simply the few changelings that weren't currently an active part of their war efforts.), wandering the town was already appetite killing, the paranoid Cobalt Guardslings made sure anypony that wanted to eat at Café Hay was either starving or determined.

He tapped the side of the building trying to guess the material and hopefully from that its purpose.

"It's wood covered in plastic and hard foam." A monotone voice offered from behind him.

Timbers head whipped backwards at a speed and angle that would be impossible for any creature with an endoskeleton.

"I was disappointed it wasn't rock too."

If Maud Pie's conversation partner looking like he snapped his own neck disturbed her in anyway it didn't register even to a changelings specialized senses. "I was hoping the material would help me learn the reasoning behind the design."

"It's a gingerbread house."

"And that is...?" Timber asked. He knew what a house was, a low occupancy structure that changelings didn't bother with for the most part in favor of more efficient mass living quarters in their hive-arcologies. Bread was a common type of prey food although the changeling education system didn't teach much more than that it existed. Ginger was either a shade of orange or a plant and he only knew about the second definition because his clutch-sister Gloriosa was one of the Hive's lead botanists. (an easy feat considering most changeling's interest in plants started and stopped at their combustion point) What they had to do with each other baffled him.

"A festive holiday decoration and treat. Most often seen at Hearths Warming. It's a baked good that looks like a house. The Cakes run a bakery and had it made to look like a product they would sell. A product that looks like a house. It's a pun."

"Ah! It's a food distribution hub and it looks like something it provides. Interesting." The changeling turned around fully and bowed. "But where are my manners? I'm Timber of Brood 1024-A, humble guest of your fair town. Wrong me and all that could shelter you will rot at your touch."

Maud curtsied, if she was phased by his introduction including a threat she did show it. "Maudalina Daisy Pie, are you a changeling geologist?"

"Technically, I suppose. It's helpful to know the ground you plan to build on."

She cocked an eyebrow. "On, not with?"

"Oh no. Stone is too heavy and brittle to use as material. Slime is so much better. Malleable, versatile, renewable, why use anything else when the perfect substance drips from your leg-holes? Slime, sparks, shells, I pity you fleshlings, you lack so much." Timber smiled not realizing just how seriously Maud took rocks. Like most changelings he was somewhat overly reliant on his empathic senses and had trouble when they weren't working.

Maud's eyes narrowed. Before she could explain the many virtues of rocks a muffled cry rang out from up the road. A group of guardsponies had gathered around a utility hole as their comrades searched the sewer tunnel under the town.

"Report! What was that?! Skyhammer! Bulkhead! Pinpointer!" The groups sergeant yelled down the hole. When nopony called back he gestured at his unit. "Bricker, Shield Wall! Keep the civilians away! Cloudraker! Alert Captain Bracer! The rest of you get down there!"

Before they could a pegasus soldier flew up from the hole. "We're okay sir! Clumsy Bulkhead spooked a rat. Nothing to worry about, just a few scratches."

"You startled a rat and it attacked you? That's odd, Fluttershy usually keeps the sewer rats so well behaved." Somepony pointed out.

"Well she has been busy with her friends galavanting around the country on the say so of some random magic map! No wonder she doesn't have time to teach the rats etiquette anymore!" Another in the crowd complained.

"Is the map magic? I think they're just using it as an excuse to take vacations!" A third yelled.

"Yeah! Save the world a few times and suddenly they're too good for us!"

Timber moved to try and calm the crowd. "Calm down, calm down. In my experience invading armies from nowhere tend make locals defensive for some reason. I'm sure the rodents were just engaging in the usual futile acts of defiance and have already been made to suffer for it." Everypony stared at him in mute horror. "What? What else do you do with rebels? Let them go? Ha!"

"Everypony please disperse! Return to whatever you were doing! We will be finished and out of your manes soon." The crowd did as they were told albeit with grumbling, while the other two soldiers, an earth pony and a unicorn, climbed up to join their squadmate.

"What happened down there?" The sergeant demanded.

"Exactly what Skyhammer reported, sir. I was not looking where I was going and stepped on a rat's tail as a result it attacked me. We have nothing else to report, we succeeded in searching the tunnel before my accident. We found no sign of the subject." The earth pony reported in a rapid monotone.

The sergeant frowned. "Are you okay soldier? You don't sound right."

"In what way, sir?" There was no emotion on his face or in his voice.

"Like that! You're way too formal all of a sudden." The sergeant scrutinized the scratch marks on Bulkhead's chin. "Get checked out by one of the medics. I don't need my troops coming down with rabies or something."

"As you will." The trio saluted. The pegasus guard quickly pulled his earth pony teammates hoof from over his heart to his forehead, his face torn between grinning disarmingly at the sergeant and glaring at his oblivious teammate. At their superiors dismissal they turned and marched down the street passed Timber and Maud. When Timber didn't move in time Bulkhead harshly shoved him aside. "Out of my way."

On seeing this Maud moved in front of them, blocking the street. "You were mean to my friend, apologize."

"He should be grateful, he was in my way and all that gets in my way I trample." Bulkhead stated coldly.

"In what way am I your friend? The pony definition seems far too loose." Timber muttered as he picked himself up.

"I'm not moving until he gets an apology." Maud remain firm.

"You are obstructing my path, that is not conducive to your health." Bulkhead glared at Maud who remained unbowed.

"Soldier? Soldier! What is going on over there?!" The sergeant barked.

"Let it go. We don't need distractions from our mission, you metal-coated clod." The pegasus hissed in Bulkheads ear.

"I apologize for my actions Timber." He hissed, not taking his eyes off Maud, displeasure plain even trough the monotone. "Happy, pony?"

Maud simply moved out of their way silently and they quickly trotted past.

"I'm sorry about that sir. Bulkhead is normally as gentle as a lamb, I don't know what's gotten into him."

"Claustrophobia perhaps?" Timber offered.

"How did he know your name?" Maud asked.

Timber shrugged. "I'm a high ranking changeling, I assume I was mentioned during a briefing or something."

"We weren't told anything about that. And Bulkhead doesn't pay attention to briefings anyway, he's a battering ram, we point him at a problem and watch it go away."

"Hmm, well that's... weird then isn't it? Perhaps you should talk with him and the others? Maybe they can explain themselves."

"Doesn't matter, the medics will look them over and I have a report to give ASAP. Don't worry, the town's clear from any threat and we are going to make sure it stays that way."

Timber smiled. "That's wonderful to hear, sir. We changelings have always had a problem with paranoia, it's nice to have it assuaged, even better in a way that doesn't involve horrific violence."

"Good for you. Enjoy the rest of your time here."

As the sergeant left them to their business Timber turned to Maud. "Thank you for your aid madam. It wasn't necessary but it is appreciated."

"It is always necessary to stand up to a bully."

"A belief that will see you to an early grave. Never pick a fight you can't win or avoid." Timber scoffed.

"I begin to see why Chrysalis ruled for so long, if that belief is common."

Timber turned to walk back to Sugar Cube Corner. "Indeed, Thorax is not a normal changeling. But perhaps he can redefine normal for us."

"You don't sound optimistic."

Timber shook his head. "I'm not given to trust or hope, I don't know what to do now that I'm finally feeling them. It's been so long since I've felt like I was doing more than giving updates on projects for a ruler I don't have faith in."

"Perhaps you should work to make sure your faith isn't misplaced, that way it won't be."

"I'll keep that in mind, thank you for the advice." He took a long look at the cafe and his king laughing with his friends, a trio of brave or starving ponies had joined them since last he'd looked.

"You are welcome." She started walking away but Timber stopped her.

"Wait. Why don't we have a little chat about building material? I think I owe you that at least."

"I would like that."

Timber gestured to Sugar Cube Corner's door. "Than lets inside shall we? I'll pay for the chewing food, you provide the love." She was hard for him to read but her passion for her profession should provide at least a snack. As a bonus he might even learn something new about minerals. Unlikely, the Architects Guild wasn't one were you could rise to the top via violence or backstabbing, they helped certainly but if that was all you had you wouldn't get far. Timber was a sponge for information even by changeling standards and had learned everything possible about his job long ago. He had been amply rewarded with rapid promotion and mild boredom as he had ceased to be challenged. Still they had blind spots, centuries or arrogant isolation had made sure of that.

---

"And this here's Wilbert, he's was one of the first macintoshes great grandpappy Discovery Apple planted." Applejack rambled as she gave a tour/inspection of her orchard to Sandalwood the changeling, picking up stray fallen apples as she went. The work kept her busy and not thinking about her missing friend, besides it needed doing anyway.

"It was difficult getting the first macintoshes to grow right outside the Everfree but he and Honeygold kept at it tell they got it right. They had to graft, that's where you... I ain't boring you, am I? I forget sometimes most folk don't see apples as that interesting as I do."

"No, Ma'am. I find the whole thing fascinating. It's amazing how complicated the whole thing is, we've always written off plant-chewers as lazy for eating something that just grows out of the ground but there is so much more to it."

"Thanks?"

Realizing his mistake Sandalwood quickly apologized. "No offence meant! All Food Bringers are respected regardless of what that food is!"

"Right." Applejack thought for a minute. "Is that why the big boss bug was nicer to me than the others at the wedding?" Chrysalis, while disguised as Princess Cadence, had abused and insulted all of Twilight's friends for the slightest reason. Except Applejack, she was the only one she had faked politeness to, disguising her disinterest in her food and even giving non-sarcastic compliments.

"Maybe, we also try not to hurt the Feeders of Food so there are more of you to feed on in the future. Sustainable hunting, Chrysalis called it. Always, like, ten steps ahead she was. On the off days, on the good ones, well, you don't want to hear about those. Once a donkey politician ruined one of her schemes, she had his life destroyed. Not by, you know, ending it or anything like that, no, she engineered things so that everything he worked for was destroyed on his death bed. His reputation, family fortune, marriage, political faction, even his foalhood playground. All destroyed half a century earlier and just waiting for her signal, when he was too weak to stop it."

"Horse hockey! How'd we whop her flank if she's so smart? Twice!"

"You planned those then?"

Applejack rubbed the back of her head sheepishly. "Er...um...no. They just sorta happened."

"Then there you go. It's not easy to plan for the unpredictable. I'm just glad she was defeated before she hurt more innocent people. Or made me."

"What did you do under her anyhow? No offence but you don't seem the ruthless changeling spy type."

"I consider that a compliment. I worked in the science guilds doing sciencey things. You know making the walls slimier, getting the acid pools to sizzle just right, building bombs."

Applejack blinked in shock, she hadn't expected him to be so candid about his past. "What was that last one?"

"Bomb building. For bombing buildings." He chucked for a bit before seeing that Applejack wasn't laughing at his joke. "Sorry. Sad part is I'm pretty good the last two, that's why Cinch named me Acid Storm." He mimed an explosion with his hooves and mimicked the sound of an acid bomb going off. Changelings didn't have many onomatopoeic words in their language, not when they could just recreate the sound perfectly.

"Never do that again!" Applejack took deep breaths as her heart slowly stopped racing and her fur stopped standing on end. "You said your name was Sandalwood."

"I changed it when I Reformed. New body, new society, new name, adds up to a whole new me. Without holes!"

"Better than the last joke." She muttered.

"I'll take it!" He laughed, this finally prompted a chuckle from Applejack as they walked out of the orchard and towards the farmhouse where the Crusaders were playing ball. Well they had been playing when the pair had last looped near the house, in the time since the game had turned into a contest of who could bounce the ball higher.

Applejack placed the apple buckets on the porch for Granny Smith to sort through later. "Ain't that the most adorable thing you ever saw?"

"I'm actually kind of disturbed. Aren't you worried something might happen to them out in the open like this?"

"Like what?"

Sandalwood gestured in the general direction of the Everfree Forest.

"Don't listen to the rumors, the forest is perfectly safe! Giant pony-eating monsters almost never attack Ponyville. Not that the insurance companies listen. No we gotta use the 'daredevil rates'. Can you believe that?"

"I can't answer that, what with having no clue what you're talking about and all."

"No insurance companies in Maredor huh?"

"We don't have any companies."

"Lucky devils." Applejack chuckled as she returned her attention to the Crusaders contest, the ball going higher and higher with every trade between the three fillies, until Scootaloo kicked it into a cloud floating overhead knocking the pegasus that had been hiding in it to the ground face first. For a second they all thought the yellow and pink mare lying in a heap was Fluttershy but the proportions were off and her mane was too short and straight. Any thoughts she was related to the timid animal lover died when she leaped to her hooves with a look of murderous rage on her freckled face.

"Why you filthy little skinbags, I oughta...

"Get away from them! What are you doing on my farm?!" The pegasus froze in shock then, then like a switch had been flipped, she went from terrifying bundle of rage to a sickeningly sweet, gushing fanfilly.

"Oh my gosh! Are you Applejack?! You are!" She ran up to Applejack and shook her hoof madly. "It's an honor to meet you! You and your friends are my heroes! Ever since you stopped the Cantorlot Attack I've wanted to be you!"

Before Applejack could muster a response the pegasus leaped over to Sandalwood poking and proding him in the most uncomfortable of places. "Are you a changeling?! You don't look like one or act like one or smell like one. You look like a crystal pony and a dung beetle had a baby they never said no to!"

"Yes, wait, huh? How do you know what we smell...? What?" Sandlewood sputtered but the mare had already turned her attention back to Applejack, shoving him aside as she did.

"What was it like to face down Nightmare Moon? Did Discord really just give you the real Elements back, instead of fakes, like a chump? How did you ever defeat the powerful and brilliant Queen Chrysalis, eternal lord and master of all changelings and soon the world? Can I have your autograph?" She promptly pulled a book from nowhere and pressed Applejack's muddy hoof onto one of it's many blank pages. "I'll cherish it forever! Kay, thanks, bye!" She declared hugging the book to her chest then immediately bolted, zipping through the apple trees at high speed, leaving a trail of falling leaves and fruit in her wake.

Everypony stood in mute confusion. "What in Blue Blaze's britches just happened?!" Applejack yelled when she finally gave up trying to make sense of the weird sequence of events on her own.

Sandalwood shrugged. "Don't look at me, I'm new here. Totally no idea what anything is about around here."

"Relative of yours?" Sweetie Belle asked Scootaloo. Orange and purple were similar to yellow and pink, which was why Sweetie Belle had assumed Fluttershy was Scootaloo's mother before she had befriended the daredevil filly. And before she had learned Fluttershy was only a year older than her sister.

"Oh jeez, I hope not."

"And Rarity and Dash want fancolts running around." Applejack shook her head, now she had to go through several rows she had already cleared.

"Girls this here is Sandalwood, he's a changeling scientist. Why don't you show him inside? I'll join you as soon as I clean up the mess our uninvited guest made." She barely had time to whisper sorry to him before the crusaders, now aware of his presence, swamped him, barraging him with questions as they pulled him inside.

"You're a changeling? Wow!""Are you the one from Cranky and Matilda's wedding?""You're pretty! How do you get your body to sparkle like that?""Are you a bug-shaped pony or a pony-shaped bug?""I bet you did all sorts of cool spy missions and stuff!""How do you keep those gems on your chest? Glue? Magic? Magic glue? Can you teach me to do it?""How do you shapeshift? Does it hurt?""You used to look cooler! Can you go back to that?"

As Applejack went to grab a new apple bucket she didn't notice a figure sneak thought the trees and around the house. The fanfilly pressed her back to the wall carefully out of sight as she glared through the window into the farmstead's living room, her autograph book still tightly clutched in her hooves. At least before she noticed she was still carrying it, then she promptly tossed it away with a look of pure disgust as it disintegrated into green embers and burnt dirt. That done she sneered at the changeling inside cheerfully showed off his shapeshifting abilities to the amazed Crusaders.

"Aww, ain't that cute, you found some pony friends Acid. That's right, put on tricks and maybe they'll give you a smile to snack on. I'm sure this is better than just ripping it out of their stupid mammal souls like a proper changeling. Think you're better than me, you lazy piece of traitor trash? Well I'll show you. No pain, no gain."

---

"How can somepony the size of Celestia just vanish?" Rainbow Dash and a troop of guardspegasi had been searching ever since the changelings had arrived, hoping to catch sight of the only pony that could tell them what was going on. They didn't have the forces for a thorough search and sending anything between a light air patrol or a small army into the Everfree was doomed to failure. The last thing anypony needed right now, or ever, was the monsters getting riled up. So far they had found nothing, although they had alerted Zecora and noticed the Poison Joke field was getting bigger, so they had a least accomplished something.

The rainbow maned pegasus grimaced as she realized she just insulted her compatriots superior. "Err...Don't tell Celestia I said that, I just got all my things where I like them at the Wonderbase."

Snap! Snap! Snap! Snap! Thump!

"Wait, it really is called the Wonderbase?" One of the soldiers asked.

"...Don't tell Spitfire I said that, I just got all my things where I like them at the Wonderbase." The Wonderbolts Captain hated HQ's nickname, if she found out the newbie was using it than she'd be plucked for sure.

Snap! Snap! Snap! Snap! Thump!

"Is there anywhere around here she could be hiding, ma'am? Somewhere local troublemakers go to hideout till the heats off?" The groups leader asked.

Rainbow Dash shook her head. "I don't know and she wouldn't either." Ponyville had never had a problem with bandits, too deep in the core provinces. The closest it had ever had were the odd jerk thrill-seeker or hunter wondering into the Everfree and making trouble. And even they were rare, mistaking "right next to the capitol" for charted and mundane.

As for pranksters like herself, if you were planning a prank that would require hiding in a monster infested swamp or forest afterward, than you weren't smart enough to consider the need for a hiding spot in the first place, never mind a good one.

Snap! Snap! Snap! Snap! Thump!

"Knock that off you overgrown gecko, we're trying to think up here!" Rainbow Dash yelled at the hungry hydra beneath them.

The hydra stopped jumping at the flying pegasi and howled in frustration, it's(their?) would be meal mocking it breaking it's last four nerves and stomped off in search of an easier meal, one of it's heads blowing a raspberry up at them as it did so.

"Stupid jerk hydra." Rainbow Dash sneered. "Alright, where to next?"

"We have had reports of odd activity near the Fire Swamp, might as well swing up that direction."

"That's a bit far for a two-legger to run, don't you think?" Rainbow questioned.

"Plus aren't those reports from weeks ago anyway, sir?" One of the troopers added.

"Do you have any better ideas soldier?" The squad leader huffed.

Rainbow spoke up. "I do. There's a bunch of tunnels up north towards the gorge. Used to be a nasty pack of diamond dogs in them, Rarity started digging in them for gems after they ran off. Better odds Twi would bring that up with her pen pal than how good the Fire Swamp is to hide in. Plus it's closer."

"Tunnels?" The guards looked at each other uncertainly, the Fire Swamp was starting to look like a good idea after all. Pegasi didn't fare well underground, for obvious reasons. Tunnel fighting was left to the other tribes.

"Yeah! You're not scared of a few holes in the ground are you? You're the Royal Guard!"

"Hey! We're not Royal Guards!"

Rainbow Dash tilted her head in confusion. "Huh?"

"We're EUP! Not those loser Cantorlot Guards!"

"Let me get this straight, I compared you to Celestia's personal guard and you're offended?"

"Yeah! They're the worst troops in the army!"

"Celestia's Spear-Tip. The Heroes of Horsestershire. The Golden Wall of Vanhoover. The group the entire Equestrian military is modeled on. That's the group you don't want to be compared to?"

"Did you notice none of those happened after the Civil War, ma'am?"

"What does that have to do with anything?"

"They used to matter, now there where we dump the losers that are just competent enough not to fire outright and the rich twits that want to buy valor."

Rainbow scoffed. "You think Celestia trusts her safety to random losers?" Sure there was those three layabouts Wind Rider had distracted with a cake but they had to be flukes.

"She's immortal, controls the sun and is universally loved. Even if they were the cream of the crop, anything that could threaten her would still plow right through them anyway. Why hold our best back defending somepony who doesn't need it? The Princess thinks she can make them fly straight but most of them end their careers there."

"What about Shining Armor?"

"You mean the biggest embarrassment to the Equestrian military since the Battle of Steer Ridge? The one everypony blames for the Wedding Attack being such a one sided slaughter? The literal postercolt for 'dimwitted grunt inexplicably given command'? That Shining Armor?"

"He's that bad?" They all nodded. How could Twilight's brother be that bad at his job? She was genius, her father a widely respected officer and her mother the editor of Daring Do among other great works. How could her brother be so incompetent and get such a high rank?

"Shoe camp uses him as the example of what not to do, Clumsy Cloud and King Cloud style. He's a living joke. And not a funny one."

"Fine, whatever." She wanted to defend her missing friends brother more but she finding the pony that could help her come back was more important right now. "Would they brave a diamond dog warren?" Maybe she could use this at least.

"Yes." The squad answered without missing a beat.

"They're idiots. You can convince them to eat used horseshoes."

Rainbow groaned in annoyance. "Just get moving!" The troops shrugged and, lacking any better ideas of their own, flew southward, Rainbow lagged behind thinking to herself. (and also giving them a head start so that it was more impressive when she got to the tunnels first) Twilight thought the world of her brother, talking about how great a guardspony he was whenever she was reminded of him, usually just before and after he visited or around the more family-centric holidays. She didn't know how to break it to her that he was loathed by the army he had dedicated his life to. Well okay she did, just blurt it out at the first opportunity, but she knew how Twilight would take it.

---

"Behold Carousel Boutique! The most changeling-esque place in Equestria! Ponies enter drab and leave a different, more fabulous pony!" Rarity beamed at the two changelings she had dragged into her workplace/art gallery/home. They had been chosen for this honor because they were the first changelings she had encountered that seemed to have a sense of fashion. (not counting their deposed Queen and her crown of course) Adding the unique aesthetic insights of the changelings to her own could push her business to even greater heights.

"Good for them?" The two changelings were unimpressed.

"Surely a shape-shifter can appreciate fashion, the ability to become somepony completely different with just a simple change of clothes? To make a statement about oneself?"

"We don't shape-shift to make statements, we do it to get close to prey or away from threats. We don't waste our time with frivolities like looking pretty." Violet Blurr, an unreformed changeling that was purple where others were blue or green and with a half ring of spikes on her head pointed out, in a tone like she was talking to an infant.

"Yeah, I really don't know why you monoforms care at all, all the fashion in the world and you're still just a pony. Why bother? 'Be proud of your true form and hone it to a killing point.'" Pixel shrugged. She didn't stand out from her follow Unreformed as much as her clutch-sister, being just noticeably shorter than average and wearing a necklace. It was a very spartan necklace as well, consisting of only two small, eye like orbs on a string.

"Oh? You're not jealous of your more glamorous cousins? With their bigger, bolder shells and shimmering wings? Or those wonderful little crystals in their barrels? They look positively regal and adorable! At the same time somehow! Do you have any idea how hard that is to accomplish? You're sure you don't want any of that?"

"Not in the slightest." Violet stated dryly before getting elbowed by her sister.

"What my clutch-sister means is we don't care about the look, we would of course like to be Reformed. Who wouldn't want to be free from this bottomless hunger? We just don't care for the outer gloss that goes with it."

As a rebuttal Rarity pointed at Pixel's necklace. "Then what is that for?" She gestured at Violet's crown. "Or those?"

Violet gingerly touched the side of her head. "These? They... I got these in my tenth year when I..." She paused unsure how to explain. "First is purple really the color of royalty out here?"

Rarity pulled out one of her many mirrors and briefly basked in the beauty of her glorious purple locks. "If it wasn't before, it is now!"

"Is that a yes or a no?"

"Ahem, yes, traditionally purple is a royal color. The purple dyes used to be rare you see. Please go on."

"Thank you. See, I've been this shade of purple ever since I pupated, it's why I was named Violet. And when I learned that little bit of trivia, I let it go straight to my head. I got it in my head that I was destined for greatness, It was a sign that I was going to be the best infiltrator in changeling history, the general that finally broke the Alliance, the Chief Caretaker all younglings looked up to, everything a changeling could hope to achieve I believed was mine by right."

"All at once?" Rarity stiffed a laugh at the childish ambition.

The two changelings stared at each other in confusion. "If I can manage it, yeah. 'Have many dreams so you'll achieve at least one.'" Violet declared, quoting her former master.

"Interesting life advice, darling."

"Good advice you mean. Back to my story, to kick start my climb to the top, every time Queen Chrysalis visited the Nursery Hive I did my best to catch her eye. That's how I got the other half of my name, I was the blurr in the corner of her eye. One day while I was trying to impress her I... I almost... there was an accident." Violet Blurr looked sadly at her friend.

"Oh my!"

"When... it was over Queen Chrysalis dragged me into her personal chambers for my punishment." She started talking in the Queen's voice, repeating what she had said to her. "You think you're royalty do you? You certainly look it and nothing else, though you're missing one little thing, let me fix that for you, your majesty." Violet returned to her normal voice. "Then she fused the shell fragments from her last molt to my head."

Rarity looked closer at the spikes lining the sides of Violets head and noticed the welding marks she had missed before. It took all her willpower to not faint. As it was she had started pulling her fainting couch into the room out of habit.

"My stars! That's horrific! I didn't think she could be so evil!" She couldn't begin to imagine how somepony could inflict such cruelty on a ten yer old foal.

"I nearly killed my brood sister! An inch to the right and I would have committed the worst crime a changeling can commit! I deserved worse and Chrysalis promised that's what I would get if the next she heard of me was anything less than glowing praise. Do you think we would have followed her for so long if everything she did was evil?"

"I suppose not."

"It's okay Violet, calm down, she forgave you, I forgive you. What's a gaping chest wound between friends?"

"Do they hurt?"

"The chest wound?" Pixel raised an eyebrow at the question.

"No! I mean, obviously that must have been excruciating, I meant the spikes."

"Only when I weld them back on." Violet shrugged.

Rarity was horrified. "They come off? Why in Luna's mane would you put them back on?! Did that horrible mare make you?"

"After I molt I reattach them to remind myself not to get a swelled head."

"As you can see, she's doing a fantastic job." Pixel teased and then puffed out her chest to show off her necklace. "My turn! These are a trophy from my first swarmling deployment."

"A trophy? For what?" Rarity had a sinking suspicion she wouldn't like the answer but had to ask regardless.

"My first kill of course! I was the last in my brood to hatch, they named me Pixel because I was so tiny as a grub they feared I wouldn't live to pupation. But I showed them! The first kill for Brood 1073-B! A gargoyle commando no less, too!"

"You killed a gargoyle and ripped his eyes out?"

"Don't be silly, of course not."

"That's a relief."

"He lived for another hour after I ripped his eyes out. Deserved it for invading our outpost."

"You...You, took out a poor gargoyles eye and stuck them on a string." That wasn't a question she was just trying desperately to parse what she had been told as her stomach turned itself inside out.

"Oh no. The nice thing about eyes is that they come with string. Convenient really."

"You...you. Excuse me!" Rarity clamped a hoof over her mouth and bolted towards the Boutiques washroom with as much speed as three legs would allow.

Violet shared a laugh and hoof-bump with her sibling. "Thorax is right, honesty really is as fun as lying!"

---

"What do your little friends eat?" Fluttershy cooed over one of the changeling tele-beetles hovering next to her face as she and their master walked towards her cottage.

Microchips, changeling communications director and chief tele-beetle caretaker followed just behind her. "Copper mostly, a bit of gold every now and then for variety. Lead or tin in a pinch. Mercury for a treat."

"Oh, metal eaters, that sounds hard to supply. We'd have such trouble with Spike if it wasn't for the gem mines outside town."

The lavender changeling shrugged. "Not really, whenever supplies run low we just steal more." Thievery was the basis of the changeling economy, they stole what they needed from the outside world and stole what they wanted from each other.

"Umm..."

"What? Oh! Right...huh. We'll... um... I guess we'll have to think of something. What's the going rate for slime these days?" There weren't many things changelings made and he doubted there was a market for torture devices and bombs. For some reason fleshlings didn't like them even when they weren't being used on them, it baffled him.

"Oh, don't worry, I'm sure you will think of something before things get bad." Who wouldn't want to help such adorable little beetles?

"Thanks for the vote of confidence miss." He would hate to see his charges suffer, they had been the closed thing he had to friends for the longest time.

Fluttershy smiled as she opened the door to her home. "You're welcome. I'm sure my animal friends will just love to meet you." As the pair entered the cottage it's animal inhabitants sprang to life to greet her, for a moment the abode was filled with chirps, squeaks and all manner of animal calls. Until they realized what her companion was then they immediately bolted for cover.

"Oh dear." She wasn't surprised just disappointed.

"It's okay I'm used to it. We did a lot to earn our reputation."

"I'm sure they will come out once they're used to your scent. Your pungent charcoal scent."

"Pungent? You really think so?"

"Um, yes, I'm sor-"

"Thank you! It's hard to build up a good char without a lot of field work. Somelings try to fake it by rolling around in fat or moss before igniting. Not me! This is all natural!" Microchip held his head high as he moved towards the living rooms couch only to walk right into the side of the table.

"That's...nice." Just treat it like Rarity's latest perfume and move on. "Would you like some tea? I have jasmine." Who didn't love jasmine tea? Not that there was anything wrong with not liking it. Or tea for that matter. Half her friends didn't after all.

He quickly pulled himself up. There was no pain just embarrassment, a benefit of a hard outer shell. "T?"

"It's a drink made from soaking certain leaves in boiling water."

"Boiling water? Yes please."

Fluttershy moved to the kitchen humming happily to herself as she prepared the teapot. It was such a rare treat to have somepony over she could have a deep conversation with, animal expert to animal expert. Outside Ponyville's veterinarian she was starved for it, her friends understood her passion but didn't share it. Rarity, Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash usually only cared about how pretty, fun or cool an animal was. Applejack was only interested if it impacted her farm and her knowledge on the subject came mostly from passed-down family stories and folk wisdom. Starlight had strong opinions about animal group dynamics but it was filtered through her old anti-cutie mark ideals and accordingly little of it was factual. Twilight was a delight to debate when she was interested in wildlife, which wasn't often, though she could be piqued if there was something magical about them or there was a mystery for her to unravel.

The changelings could potentially be a treasure trove of knowledge unknown to the broader world. If nothing else their empathic talents could be invaluable in better understanding and caring for her animal friends. The possibilities were so exciting, how sand scorpions reproduced, whether dust devil dogs were real, whether voltures used the electricity they gathered as a food source or only for self-defense, she briefly missed the kettle whistle.

"Do changelings have other pets?" She asked as she set the tea tray down on the table. She would wait for her's to cool but he would not, downing the scalding drink without a second thought or the slightest discomfort. She flinched at the sight.

"Other?"

"Other than the beetles."

"They aren't pets, they're tools that eat."

"That's not a very nice thing to say." Fluttershy scolded before the beetles chittered at her. "What's that? You don't mind? Tools are needed, pets are disposable? That's an odd belief." She had meet many critters that didn't want to be or didn't like being called a pet, chief among them her own Angel Bunny, but one that considered itself a tool? That was a first.

"Pets are a luxury back home, only the most trusted and skilled are allowed to have them." Micro explained.

"Why?" Chrysalis was evil but limiting the amount of pets her subjects had just seemed pointlessly cruel and petty.

"Hard to keep them from escaping otherwise, can't trust them to just anyling. It's hard work to break a captives will to resist. Besides they were usually the ones who caught them in the first place."

"You're... you're thinking of slaves Micro."

He tilted his head. "What's the difference?"

"A pet wants to be with you, a slave has no choice."

"Huh. Then we've never had pets. Ever."

"Do you have any other 'tools' like the tele-beetles? Ones that like working with you?"

"Well we created the breezies but they ran away. We still don't know how they did it."

"The breezies? How?" Beyond being pony-like creatures with insectoid traits they had little in common.

"We captured a herd of pegasuses moving through the wasteland about seven hundred years ago, subjected them to large concentrated doses of changeling magic over several generations in the hopes of breeding a compliant food race." He shifted from a copy of Fluttershy to a tiny breezie to highlight the sheer scale of the deed.

"Seven hundred? They must be the Free Breeze Phalanx!"

Micro returned to his normal form, it was painful to compress yourself that much. "And they are?"

"A group of pegasus seperationists that left Las Pegasus when Mustangia was re-annexed. They were never heard from again." Not that anypony wanted to hear from them again but a hundreds strong collection of bigots who promised to return as a conquering army disappearing was something to worry about.

Suddenly some of breeziekinds mysteries started to make sense. Their unsustainable and completely isolated ecosystem, their odd combination of low birthrate and extreme frailty, their nearly feverish body temperature, their ability to rapidly learn foreign languages and their delight in being the center of attention despite near total isolation from other cultures and their quickness to deceive and seemingly natural talent at it.

During their journey with them Seabreeze had explained that he wore his black jumpsuit because it was the color of the political faction he belonged to, the Black Breezie Brigade, and represented command, cunning and hardiness. To him it was a show of contempt for the grotto's current leadership, who he felt were weak willed cowards 'running from the past' and 'wasting their potential'. A detail that was suddenly very worrying now.

"Huh, that explains a few things like why we attacked them when we had full love stores at the time. Or why the Queen earmarked their leaders for her personal attention."

"Does that mean what I think it means?"

"That they welcomed death when she finally allowed it? Yes." Changelings longed for their queens attention but all others were right to fear it.

"The Breezie Grotto is inside the wasteland and Chrysalis doesn't let grudges go. How are they still free?" Fluttershy asked.

"Like I said, we don't know how they escaped so there isn't much point trying to recapture them is there?"

"I suppose not."

"It's the official reason at least. See, we thought they enjoyed being part of the Collective, a valuable piece of our whole. We treated them well or we thought we did. Their small size allowed them to get into the nooks and crannies we couldn't, it was invaluable for maintenance. We were even training some as assassins. Give them a poisoned needle, point them at a crack in a wall then listen for the screams come the morning. Good dishonest fun." He shook his head. "We took it badly when they left. We just can't bring ourselves to hurt the little things."

"How kind of you. To not want to hurt the innocent little breezies. After horrifically mutating and enslaving them."

He didn't seem to catch the sarcasm her voice was laced with. "Thank you, we had our moments even under Chrysalis. We also have a congress of salamanders up on Mt. Scaldara. They fry anyone flammable that comes through the mountain and we throw them some lumber to eat every now and then, otherwise we leave them alone and they leave us alone."

"Volcanic salamanders? I would love to see one." That was much better. A rare, majestic animal and not a months worth of nightmares.

"I'll take you to see them if you ever visit the Changeling Kingdom. Let's see, there was also Pern'ren Decp'totarn."

"What are they?"

"He. A phoenix. The Queen's old pet and apparently one of her best warriors. The name is from a collection of ancient changeling poems, The Sagas of The First War. I think the translation would be something like: Buzzsaw born from the depths of hell."

"That's a... unique name. You said old pet. What happened to him?" Phoenix's could die but a body could last nearly three centuries before wearing out, there were few things that could kill them without triggering their regeneration and it took more than a dozen rebirths before true death became a worry. The empire Chrysalis had founded was just over a thousand years old and she was unlikely to be significantly older than that. So unless 'Hell Buzzsaw' was already elderly when she recruited him or was uncommonly clumsy he should still be alive.

"Records don't go into much detail but reading between the lines says he betrayed her when Krunch sent an army to invade us five hundred years ago. Didn't trust in her plan to push them back. Obviously she did and when the dogs fled they left him behind to feel her wrath. She doesn't take betrayal well." He shuddered, what Chrysalis would do to him if she got the chance wasn't going to be anything less than horrific.

"She killed a phoenix?" Most cultures considered that bad luck. Except dragons.

"Yeah, put his ashes in a metal box and threw it in lake Shadewater. Like I said, not well."

"But phoenix's are still sentient in ash form."

"You say that like it's a problem to her."

"I... suppose not. Is that all?"

Micro looked at his feet uncomfortably. "Well..." He sighed and took a deep breath. "I guess we can't be keeping secrets anymore. Every changeling nymph is given a bumble-puppy larva to raise."

"Awh! You're so lucky! They're so adorable!" Bumble-puppies, a distant canid cousin to the bugbear, were considered one of the most adorable animals alive. At least according to Mother Nature Monthly which had voted them such ever since breezies were declared a civilization and not animals. "What do they do? Guard dogs? Hunting aides?"

He took a deep breath. "After a year we're tested on how healthy they are, how obedient, how loving." He sighed morosely. "Then we drain them to death and make something out of the corpse. I made a pair of castanets and a set of throwing knives."

"Why?!"

"Not the most creative choices I know."

"Not that! Why would you kill a harmless little bumble-puppy!"

"To test our ability to cultivate a love source and then snuff it out when needed. Also our craft making skills."

"What if you refuse to do something so horrible?"

"You don't graduate."

"That's not so bad." Expulsion from school seemed almost kind from a system build by the ruthless control freak that was Chrysalis.

"Younglings that can't or won't graduate are killed. Drain on resources."

"You have to do that to graduate school? Spy school or some kind of military academy? You can avoid the training right?"

"It's part of basic education. If you don't graduate you can't leave the Nursery and if you fail enough times you die."

"That's bad. Very bad." And she had thought Cloudsdale High School was bad.

"It is pretty stress inducing yes."

"Thorax put a stop to that right? Right?" He was such a nice colt it was impossible to believe he would let something so horrific continue.

"Yes. I think so. Chief Caretaker Gloriosa's reports have gotten vague since the Reformation but she was always against the more brutal aspects of changeling education even under Chrysalis. She must have."

"That's nice to hear. You should hold a funeral for all the poor bumble-puppies. Try and say sorry."

"What's the point? They're dead. Most lings enjoyed killing them and the rest of us don't need the memories dredged up. Forgetting is hard enough as it is."

"Because of the trauma."

"Eidetic memory actually but that doesn't help." He muttered sadly. "It's draining going day to day knowing that your main value to the collective comes from how much you can hurt innocent people. Just, just more draining than the hunger."

Fluttershy hugged him. "It's okay Micro, she can't hurt you now."

---

Princess Celestia glared at Twilight's guide to her blueprint filing system. Alphabetical cross referenced by date, cross-cross referenced by shade of blue, she nearly went cross-eyed trying to make sense of it before just giving up. Without somepony to ground her, Twilight's obsession with organization could quickly spiral out of control, which was why she had assigned Spike as her assistant. Bitter experience with her predecessor, Sunset Shimmer, had taught her the value of an aid that would talk back to her students but she knew just from meeting little Twilight that assigning a more strong willed assistant could end up dominating and stunting her. Spike offered the right balance and as a bonus it gave him something to do.

Sighing and shaking her head Celestia moved to find what she was looking for the old fashioned way. Since she knew what the finished product looked like it was simply a matter of looking at each blueprint one by one until she found one with a diagram of the mirror on it. Pulling a dozen at a time out of their shelves that filled the small room and looking at them. As she studied the odd designs (most seemed to be attempts to figure out or replicate devices Twilight had seen on the other side of the portal) she kicked up a small cloud dust until finally her nose could stand no more and she sneezed one of the shelves, knocking it over. Just barely catching it before it toppled over completely. As she returned the shelve to its place she noticed something hidden under it.

A small pile of ashes.

Setting the shelf down Celestia lifted the ashes in her magic grip and cast a spell she had spent much of her youth mastering, the first of her spells to impress her first magic tutor, Clover the Clever. The spell that remained the magical achievement she was most proud of. A spell to restore burned objects to a pristine state, rather necessary to interact with the world when you were a living channel for the sun. For all her effort only a few blue slivers reassembled themselves. It had been too long since the papers had burned for the spell to do more.

Disheartened she left the room, the burned blueprint could be unrelated, she certainly had no illusions that Spike, as much as she cared for him, was above accidentally destroying something and then poorly covering it up. But it was too big a coincidence, especially when Sunset had already destroyed the repair manual and the fact that the rooms filing system was so over complicated was a big clue that Spike did not enter it often. There was nothing to be found in there anymore.

She dejectedly walked to the machine room where a quartet of EUP Guard Engineers were gathered around the mangled device carefully disassembling and cataloging what was left. Slowly, carefully pulling its components from it's partially melted hulk and placing them it one of three piles, those with no or minimal damage, those that might still be salvageable and one for the pieces damaged beyond any hope of repair. Sadly this last one dwarfed the other two combined.

"Princess!" The engineers quickly snapped to attention when they saw her enter the room.

"Thank you but that is not necessary, if you keep saluting every time I enter the room we'll never get anything done will we?" She joked though she felt no joy at the moment.

The leader of the group, a green and purple pegasus named Scrapper, walked up to her. "No luck finding a blueprint for this thing, ma'am?"

"Oh no, I found it, I'm afraid." Celestia forlornly glanced at the rooms wastebasket, which had an unusually large, even for a home with a dragon in it, amount of ash in it. "Where is the rest of your team?"

"Arc Weld and Power Line are down in Princess Twilight's spare parts room seeing what's salvageable."

"Salvageable?" She knew Twilight was a bit of a hoarder when it came to machinery but she wouldn't keep useless parts around.

"Yeah, looks like Sunset got into the storeroom and partially melted nearly everything in there."

"Everything?"

"Yeah, just enough heat warping to render them useless. It's why I sent two of the unicorns down there, they might be able to fix a few of them."

"Hmm, clever, very clever Sunset." Celestia couldn't help but be impressed with her former student even as that cleverness harmed her other student.

"How's that, ma'am? That room's huge and there's noway all the stuff in there could be used to fix the mirramahickey. Looks like she wasted a lot of time wrecking stuff she didn't need to to me."

"Where there any labels to the effect of 'spare parts for inter-dimensional portal device'?" The Princess of the Sun questioned her subject politely, like a teacher leading a student to a answer.

Scrapper shook his head. "That's what we were hoping for, no dice."

"If she had done nothing we would have the right parts at hoof to fix the device when we found out how and the tools to find out how, if she destroyed only the parts we need then we would know what we need. This way we don't have the parts to experiment with and a hundred false leads."

"Huh, yeah that is clever. Bad for us though."

"Very."

"Found it!" Pinkie Pie bounded into the room followed by half a dozen confused changelings she had been touring through Ponyville. She happily bounced around the room with a small book in her mouth.

"Found? Found what?"

The pink blur circling the room screeched to a halt in front of the Princess and spat the book out at her hooves, rearing up on her hind legs like a dog. It was a copy of the Twilight's repair manual. It wasn't the backup they were looking for, instead it was a rough draft filled with post it notes and scratched out sentences.

"Where did you find this, Pinkie Pie?"

"Bark! Bark!" Pinkie sheepish returned to a normal posture and cleared her throat. "Sorry. You know how what you're looking for is always in the last place you look?"

"Because that's when you stop looking? Because you have found what you're looking for?" What did that vapid truism have to do with anything?

"So I thought to myself, Pinkie Pie you perfectly punny P.I, where is the last place Twilight would put the book we need? I've been trying to figure out where that is all day and when I was giving the nice little buggy-wuggy ponies here a tour." She pointed at her little tour group. "Say hi, guys!"

"Greetings my little pon...changelings." Celestia "Why don't you all wait in the lobby until we are done here?"

"I was introducing them to Bulk Biceps, when it hit me! A stray nut from the popper! But it gave me an idea! The last place Twilight would put the book would be in a dairy farm in the center of the Sun!"

"You are aware that last and impossible are not the same thing, yes?"

"Exactly what I thought! But then I tried thinking of the last place she would put, that was actually possible for it to be. Then I got it! The bag of toasted peanuts I'd ordered! Want some?" She pulled a bag of peanuts out of her mane and held it out.

"Please focus."

"Yes, please." Scrapper held out a wing. "What? I haven't had lunch yet."

"Where was I?" Pinkie asked between a mouthful of peanuts. "Right! Since it had to be in the last place we would look it had to be in the last place Twilight would put it, right?"

"That's almost logic." Celestia conceded.

"And the last place Twilight would put it, that she physically could, is the fancy princess office she never uses! So I ran right here and sure enough, there it was!" It turned out Twilight stored all the rough drafts and manuscripts she was finished with in her office. That way the office's bookshelf looked full, the only point of it right now was to impress visitors, and she didn't have to throw away any books, even crude and unfinished ones.

"Why did I believe her when she said she used it everyday?" Celestia muttered under her breath, she knew Twilight's workload as Equestria's newest Princess was tiny, she had made sure of it personally. The differences in social station and responsibilities between Twilight Sparkle, Student of Princess Celestia and Twilight Sparkle, Princess of Friendship were minuscule and would likely remain so for the foreseeable future. She still wondered if Twilight had ever noticed how little her life had actually changed in that regard.

Her occasional bouts of irrational behavior at least made it easier to understand how she could be related to Shining Armor. At least until she remembered that that irrational behavior was often born out of insecurities, perfectionism and her foalhood introversion lending her a poor understanding of how other ponies thought. She had yet to, and had long given up even trying to, find a single reason for Shining Armor's near total vapid uselessness, she was simply grateful for the opportunity to exile him to the Crystal Empire.

She turned to Scrapper. "Can you use this Mr. Scrapper?"

The engineer flipped through the pages. "I've worked with worse, a lot worse actually. We at least know what we need and where it goes now." It would take time to parse the manual as it was filled with passages and diagrams that were unclear or duplicated as the point of the rough draft was to find the clearest way to explain what needed to be done to locate and fix a problem with the machine. Twilight had plainly been warring with her impulse to use precise technical wording and overly detailed diagrams against the need to keep it simple and legible for a pony without multiple advanced thauma-physics degrees.

"Good." Celestia picked up the book and duplicated it and then duplicated it again and then again. She returned one of the copies to Scrapper while tucking the original under her wing.

"Not taking any chances here, are you boss?" The engineer asked, half impressed and half joking.

"I do not take chances with the safety of my little ponies." She responded firmly.

"Right, I'll make a list of what we need and send a runner for supplies. This things got a list of everything used to make the, hold on," He checked the manual for the name of the machine. "The Bi-Universal Portal Sustainment Device, patent pending. Even has a list of recommended replacement parts for jerry rigging! That's real thoughtful of her, more manuals should do that. Can't do much till they get back to us, though."

"Twilight doesn't have spares? She always has spares! She's almost as prepared as me!'

Celestia raised an eyebrow. "No offence, Miss Pie, but I find that rather difficult to believe."

"Well, she does limit herself to things that are 'logical' and 'physically possible.' Since when do those happen?" Pinkie scoffed.

"I stand corrected. At any rate, Sunset thought ahead and destroyed most of the castle's supply of mechanical parts before tricking Twilight. She plainly wanted her return delayed as long as possible."

"Have you gone to Mjolna?" At the princess's questioning stare she elaborated. "Mjolna's Mechanical Marvel Mart! Ponyville's one stop shop for technowhatzits and wizzbangers and Hearth's Warming lights that don't tangle!"

Scrapper spoke up. "I did actually, when we noticed Sunset's sabotage, I took the initiative and checked out the local electronics store. Buying local would be quicker than waiting for supplies from Cantorlot or wherever these fancy parts come from. Plus she's probably the only pony left in Ponyville that would have any clues about what we need."

"Good thinking Mr. Scrapper."

"Thank you, your Highness. I couldn't get much out of her though."

"Really? But Miss Mjolna's so nice!" Pinkie Pie proclaimed, Mjolna was a great help in building and fixing her various 'Party Perfectorizing Gadgets^tm'.

"I'll have to take your word for that, getting any information out of her was like pulling teeth. Don't know way, you'd think she'd be happy after somepony bought her whole stock..."

"What? When?" Pinkie asked, he was right, if Mjolna had made a sale like that she'd be through the roof. Why was she of all ponies hearing about it from somepony who arrived here only hours earlier?

"Yesterday."

"That's suspicious." Celestia noted.

"That's what I thought. I asked about it, may have made some legal threats you probably wouldn't have backed up to get anything, sorry bout that ma'am. She said the stuff was bought by one of her semi-regular customers, a unicorn name of Circuit Chase."

"Circuit Chase!" Pinkie proclaimed.

"You know her?" Celestia queried.

"Yes! I mean, I've met her, she didn't like that, let me tell you. She's like Cranky but with the curmudgeonly charm and a lot more probably unspoken threats of violence. Like a lot more." Not a single one of her attempts to greet Circuit Chase had been met with anything other than apathy at best.

"Probably unspoken?" Celestia questioned.

"She uses a lot of big fancy words, so I don't really know exactly what she said but I sure got the hint. She just walks into town from somewhere past Froggy Bottom Bog, buys some electrododdles and leaves. She wants nothing else from us, not food, not smiles, not conversation, not nothing. The nicer you are to her the nastier she seems to get." Pinkie shrugged sadly, it hurt her to see a pony so aggressively alone but what could she do? She'd learned her lesson from Cranky and knew that trying to pry a smile from her would only make her things worse. That the only time Circuit Chase had been seen to smile was when Silver Spoon had scrapped her knee was compelling evidence her smiling wasn't desirable in the first place.

"Why'd she buy all that stuff?" Pinkie asked. She, and much of Ponyville, couldn't help but wonder what Circuit was building with all the doodads she bought although rumors abounded. The most popular was that she was building a mechanical Frankenstallion because her obnoxious personality drove everypony else away.

"Apparently she was acting on the behalf of a Crystal pony noble named Crystal Iris, part of some kind of modernization project for the Empire."

"I have never heard of a 'Crystal Iris' among the Crystal Empire's major political players or any project that would want parts from Ponyville. I'll have to ask Lt. Flash Sentry if he knows anything about this." Crystal Iris could simply be a minor noble in the Empire making a move up the ladder but why would she buy from a Ponyville vendor instead of a larger company? Why apparently not try to involve the Princess of Friendship?

"Why not ask Princess Cadence?" Pinkie asked.

"Why would I do that?" Celestia responded as though the question made no sense.

"Because she's in charge of the Crystal Empire? Wouldn't she know what's going on in her Empire?" Pinkie was used to ponies acting like her statements were nonsensical because most of them were, but why would a military adviser know more about the Crystal Empire than it's leader?

Celestia broke out in deep all consuming laughter. Everypony in the room stared at her in shock, even the engineers, who knew a conversation above their pay grade when they heard it and had been busy working while the others conversed, as Celestia stamped her hoof in hysterical laughter for minutes straight, a testament to her alicorn stamina.

"Ha Ha Ha! Cadence.. in charge, Ha! Know what's... Cadence! Know! Ha Ha!" The Princess of the Sun placed a hoof on Pinkies shoulder as she tried to catch her breath. "Thank, ha, thank you for that, I needed that. Heh, my sides."

"You're welcome?" This was the first time somepony had laughed at something she had said that wasn't a joke and she was having trouble processing it. While she was trying a stray thought hit her. "Wait, Scrappy, you said that Mjolna was cleaned out yesterday and she had nothing today, right?"

"First; don't call me that. I hate being called that."

"Oh yeah, I get why. Sorry, wasn't thinking."

"Second: yeah, that's what I said. Why?"

"Did you mean nothing useful for fixing the thingy or nothing-nothing."

"Both kinda. She just had basic tinkers supplies left. Bolts, screwdrivers, bits of wire, stuff like that. Nothing high end."

"If it happened yesterday she should already have new stock. Her supplier would have sent something when they heard she was out. You sure she had nothing?"

"I work for the Princess and was offering to pay whatever price she asked, if she had anything left she'd have sold. They close enough to get here in a day?"

"They're in Filly-delphia, And the ponies that move them are very dedicated and punctual. Well, one of them anyway."

"I'll have a search party sent up the Filly-delphia road. When the Cantorlot librarians report back, I'll ask about this Circuit Chase. I hope this is just a coincidence but it seems there is more going on than we first thought." Celestia declared. The thought of the sirens returning or Sunset being corrupted were already nightmares for her, both seeming to happen at the same time was the only thing worse. If somepony was helping them or in anyway involved in this, she would find out.

Pinkie's ears drooped. "They haven't found the spell we need yet?"

Celestia turned to the back corner of the room where the remains of Sunsets journal was kept, suspended in a protective golden bubble. "Sadly no. Were the spell made by any other pony we would have already found it, but Invisible Ink was one of the ponies for whom genius and madness blur. She could see connections no pony else could and worked with a relentless passion on the tinniest of details, it made her an excellent researcher and a master spy. Unfortunately she often saw connections that were not there, turning coincidence into conspiracy."

"She served as my spy master three hundred years ago, saved the kingdom and my life multiple times. I'm disappointed, if unsurprised, that she would do something like this, she must have feared her old research could be used against her." She owed Invisible Ink her life, a rare thing from an immortal, doubly so because she had only been endangered in the first place by ignoring Invisible's warnings not to trust the treacherous Lord Sparkledancer in the first place. A lesser pony would have let her die to the ambitious duke's trap. As proven by how much of her own court had been involved in the plot for even flimsier reasons. It had been incredibly painful to watch her destroy herself and be unable to help except to forcibly retire her.

"How? What'd she do?" Pinkie asked.

"A great many things but that is immaterial, her fears were not rational. I can only hope she merely hid her involvement in their creation instead of erasing them completely."

"You think she destroyed it don't you?" Pinkie deflated at the thought, tears welling up in her eyes.

"No no no!" Celestia quickly tried to console her, a depressed Pinkie Pie might be the most heartbreaking sight she had ever seen over her long life. "It is a possibility, yes. But destruction is not always the easiest path, it tends to leave a trail, something Invisible Ink would know well. She most likely requested name changes for the spells or insisted that her collaborators be given top billing, maybe claimed to have changed her own name. There were many ways she could have buried her own work that would not have raised eyebrows."

Pinkie started perking up. "Never thought we'd be saved by red tape and bureaucracy. Twilight would be proud."

"I've given them a list of every alias and bolthole of hers that I can remember. You can rest assured that if her notes still exist they will be found and soon. Twilight will return, I promise."

"And when they find it we'll be ready to use it." Scrapper vowed and turned to his team. "Right fellas?" They cheered.

"That's good to hear, thank you." Pinkie sniffled before the castle's fire alarm suddenly went off.

One of the changeling tourists burst into the room, soaking and panicked. "Water! Water from the walls!"

"That's the sprinklers, why did they go off?" Celestia asked.

"I don't know! We were just lighting fires and then the horrible noise and the awful water! Why do you have that horrid thing?!"

"To put out the fires." Celestia had hoped her sister was exaggerating about how pyrophilic they were, keeping the peace with these compulsive arsonists was going to be a bigger challenge than she had first thought. How could you live peacefully with someone who's first impulse was to lie and destroy?

He stared at her like she had groan a second head. "Why would you want to do such a horrible thing?!"

"Because we're flammable and can't breathe smoke?" Pinkie asked in return, today was really not helping her problem understanding what was and wasn't common knowledge.

The changeling stared at them in pity and confusion as he struggled to wrap his head around the thought that fire could ever be bad.

Celestia sighed. "Come Miss Pie, it seems we have to calm down a group of wet fire bugs. This day just keeps getting better doesn't it?"

---

On a cloud high above Ponyville a collection of pegasus guards idly played cards while awaiting orders.

"Dang it! I swear Eagle Eye is cheating!" One of them complained after losing a round of poker.

"The Fates just like me more than you, Wild Windmill, no sense complaining about it." Eagle Eye smirked as he collected his winnings.

Windmill lunged at him, quickly restrained by his comrades, not out of any real desire to protect Eagle Eye but because they would share the punishment for the fight. "I'll show you The Fates, you smug son of a mule!"

"Whatever your're doing pack it up! We've got a mission!" A Sergeant yelled as he approached.

"We found the target?"

"No, something new. Apparently a transport is late and the Princess wants somepony to check the road to Filly-delphia for them. We're looking for an air-cart of machine parts and two pegasi stallions, one grey coat, tan mane, name of Tailspin. Other's Air Freight, grey-blue, blond mane. We'll link up with Lift Ticket and Ice Pack in case of the worst."

"Any other details sarge?"

He shuddered remembering Pinkie Pie's briefing about everything she knew about the two missing ponies, a list as thorough as it was useless to the task at hoof. "Far too many. Move out."

After they left a dark figure slowly emerged from within the cloud, a changeling with glasses attached to her muzzle and a quiver on her side. While ponies kept eyewear on their heads with either magic or light adhesives, changelings had a characteristically more brutal approach to the problem, welding. It was painful but they never had to worry about them falling off, a real worry for a civilization that relied so heavily on infiltration and raiding.

Abacus Cinch, elite most agent of Queen Chrysalis, carefully looked about, the ponies wouldn't think anything of a changeling acting suspicious in Ponyville, they had been invited there and suspicious was a changeling's ground state after all. But if any of her former subjects recognized her, her master's plan would be threatened. This was it's most vulnerable point and if it was discovered because of her... There would be no forgiveness for a failure that cataclysmic, no matter her prior unblemished record of success.

She whispered to a small black beetle nestled inside of one of her hoof-holes. The words were both incomprehensible and inaudible to pony ears. <Cinch to all units, they are sending a search flight south-west. Flare, the Circuit Chase identity is likely compromised, switch to Tinker Tenor as soon as possible. Blackwall, Spinnerette, Soulbite, the cloud is clear. Join me at the next opportunity. Remember everyling, first we deceive and then we destroy. When the time is right we shall strike like a bolt from the shadows!>

---

"So hows the Hive? Everyling getting along?" Starlight asked awkwardly as she, Spike and Thorax (and his guards) waited for their orders in Café Hay, Ponyville's fanciest restaurant. A treat from Thorax, what's the point in being a king if you can't treat your friends every now and then?

Thorax thought carefully before answering that question...

---

One day after Reformation:
Thorax stood at Chrysalis' his desk deep within the Royal Hive. Things had finally stabilized and it was time to start reaching out to the far flung tendrils of the Changeling Shadow Empire, show them a better path. And he knew just who to start with.

Twenty minutes later:

"Join us Imperator and help lead us into a new dawn!"

"I would rather drink ice water you waste of chitin." Abacus Cinch hissed through the tele-beetle's audio link, her contempt so thick it was almost choking.

"We have a chance to accomplish something truly great, we need all the help we can get. Please Imperator!"

"You are right about needing help, you are only wrong about what kind. That's an improvement, congratulations." Although the link was only auditory Thorax had no trouble visualizing the Imperator. A condescending sneer that never seemed to leave her face, barely masking her rising frustration with his every utterance culminating in forcing Kevin to beat him again...

He shook his head, clearing away the phantom image of his clutch-sibling's forced smile as he raised his hoof for another blow. Kevin's nervous laughter ringing in his ears. "That was uncalled for."

"I'm on the run because of you, you vapid dolt! We had Equestria dancing on a string! I was Celestia! How's that for greatness?"

"You don't have to run! Just turn yourself in and you won't be harmed. Princess Celestia will see to it you are treated with respect."

"After we foalnapped her and killed three guards? What kind of idiot do you take me for? Your reflection?"

"Killed?! Why?!"

"They were in the way of our escape."

"Also food." Her partner added.

"Yes, thank you Chainbreaker, we can never state the obvious enough around Thorax." A deep growl came through the link. Cinch ignored it.

"They would still be alive if you hadn't betrayed us you know. Or did you think upending an entire kingdom was going to be free of negative consequences?" All these years since graduation, a complete transformation of body and spark, and she was still talking down to him.

"How is dead ponies a negative consequence?" Chainbreaker asked.

"He thinks it is Chainbreaker, try to keep up."

"Fires above and below, I hate you."

"I'm... I'm sure we can work this out... First Fire, what a mess." How was he supposed to convince Celestia to let two murderers go free? How could he even hope to make it right with the families of the departed? He couldn't taste a single hint of regret over the act on either voice, the concept that pony lives had value was utterly alien to the pair. That was going to make things hard too.

"You're more worried about some useless heat-born than two of the hive's best? Cinch, why wasn't this defective culled before he could be inflicted on the world?"

"I tried, several times, Gloriosa vetoed the rest of us."

"You, you what?" Thorax fought to keep the contents of his stomach down. It was one of the highest crimes in the collective to harm a youngling, through action or inaction. Only caretakers were allowed to harm one and only for disciplinary purposes. Whether to cull a nymph, larva couldn't even be considered, could only be decided by a unanimous vote by the senior most caretakers and the relevant brood master, in his case Gloriosa. He had always known he was at the bottom of his classes and that the teachers hated him for his habit of questioning changeling conventional wisdom and reluctance to perform the more brutal training exercises but he never could have guessed that all but one would vote to kill him. Repeatedly.

"Face facts Thorax, you're an outlier, a freak, a non-viable mutation that will not be passed on. You've failed at everything you ever attempted, why should this fool revolt be any different? You can't lead them, you don't have a leader's conviction, ruthlessness or paranoia. You simply don't have the will needed to hold the Many together never mind direct them to victory against even the weakest of our many foes. Could you sacrifice a few for the betterment of the whole? Even a life a valueless as a pony's?"

"You're describing villainy not leadership!"

Cinch just laughed at him. "Are you so divorced from reality that you presume there to be a difference? Where did you get such fool ideas? Was it that coddling Gloriosa? Let me set you straight. A true leader sees beyond themselves and rises above the limitations of base survival and sees the path to maximum fulfillment for the greatest number of changelings and
pushes for it regardless of the obstacles, physical or moral. She is an inspiring presence, a living embodiment of all that makes us great. You on the other hoof are a sniveling, selfish dronelarva that could barely kill a single bumble-puppy that we held down for you."

"Your 'true leader' just ran away to sulk after her own court sided with me!" Thorax snapped angrily, she had to remind him of poor Fuzzy Buzzy. He could still see her pleading eyes when he closed his own.

"And when they see what pony friendship truly means, the indignities, the neglect, the demands, they will welcome our liege and the freedom and opportunity she represents back eagerly. And you, Thorax, will die the worst death of all. Alone, unloved and remembered only as an object lesson on the value of loyalty and the penalty for disobedience."

"Thousands of changelings say you're wrong Caretaker!"

"Thousands! Oh my!" Cinch cried in mock shock and horror. "At last census we numbered one million, one hundred and forty nine thousand, two hundred and fifty six. You'll forgive me if I'm not shaking in my stolen boots."

"You know what I meant!"

"Than say what you mean, worm! Lies are for food not people!" Chainbreaker snapped.

Abacus affected her patented veneer of motherly condescension. "I'm still an educator at heart Thorax, so let me give you some free advice. Run. And never stop. Find the deepest, darkest, coldest hole in the world and then dig. When I have Indigo drag your misshapen carcass in front of the Cobalt Judges for your crimes, I want to know she had to work for it. The Many know it won't be because you can fight worth a damn. Have a good day Thorax, for you have so few left. And stay out of my office!" There was a sharp click from the beetle's pincers as she cut the link.

He simply sighed, it was a longshot trying to convince the pair sent to replace the Royal Sisters. You didn't become the Queen's right hoof mare by having even a shred of kindness or remorse, why would she abandon a path that had only rewarded her? He knew Chainbreaker only by reputation but if he was anything like his brutal apprentice, Thorax's former unit commander Captain Plasma, then he would oppose him on the grounds that emotions of any sort were a weakness that could not be tolerated. But he had to try, to abandon them to their ways would be a betrayal of the kindness Spike had shown him. That they would kill him and feel nothing but joy was no excuse.

The Ponyville pack should go better, they were six of the swarm's best (and Kevin) yet they were so insecure about their place at the the Queen's side that they were always loudly proclaiming their loyalty to her and eagerness to serve. Arctic, two of them seemed to speak in nothing but variants of "Glory to the Swarm!" and "All Hail Glorious Chrysalis!" They had to be sick of it by now.

As for the Crystal Empire team, this at least confirmed what he had always hoped was true. That Gloriosa's kindness was genuine and not a cynical attempt to counterbalance Cinch's callous cruelty. It also gave him hope Chrysalis herself could be reasoned with as she had made her Chief Caretaker after Cinch, it hinted she still knew the value of kindness. The other spies would go better if for no other reason than they couldn't very well go worse.

---

Half an hour later:

"And then I was elected King."

"King of fools and traitors! A puppet to the Princess! You rule nothing heretic!" The changeling at the other end yelled.

"Don't you see what this means for us? We don't have to take love. We don't have to hide. We don't have to live everyday preparing for war."

"I see what our master has shown us! A glorious future where all are united under her glorious rule! You're the blind one! I'll use your eyes as paddle balls!"

"I've had enough of this! Someling shut her up!" The imperious voice of Sunny Flare interrupted the rambling series of threats.

"You can silence me but you can't silence justic-" Wham! Thorax couldn't see the other end of the link but he still felt the chitin on chitin crunch.

"Not quite what I meant Sugarcoat."

"She is silent. Why do you complain?"

"Thank you I suppose. I'm sure she'll be calmer and easier to convince once she wakes up. In the meantime we can have a conversation like civilized changelings."

"You misunderstand, I have no interest in conversing with a delusional noling like yourself, I simply want to condescend at you for a bit."

"No interest? We don't have to hunt anymore! We can talk to outsiders like equals! We don't have to live in fear! That doesn't interest you? You're supposed to be smart!"

"And you aren't. Which is why this nonsense isn't surprising from you." She scoffed.

"Nonsense? What about this is nonsense? I defeated Chrysalis, reformed the swarm and was made leader of the Collective."

"For one, you're claiming to have found a perpetual motion machine by hugging each other. Do you seriously not see the problem with that?"

"That's not the point! The point is that we can gain love without hurting anyone."

"Why would we want to? That's the best part." She retorted, everything was made better with somepony squirming in pain.

"Think of all the things you can learn from the ponies now that you don't have to hide from them. You saw what Twilight has accomplished, wouldn't you like to talk to her as an equal? Sunburst always spoke about how great it was to collaborate and discus with a fellow scholar. They would love to work with a true changeling intellectual."

"Flattery! My one true weakness! Perhaps there's hope for you yet!"

"Great! I can introduce you! They have so many questions about changeling magic I wasn't able to answer."

"Share? Knowledge? With those not of the Many? Why would I ever do such a fool thing? I'd much rather rip the knowledge out of their skulls. Quicker, more enjoyable and no risk of making the useless mammals smarter."

"Ugh. Isn't Lemon Zest the officer for your unit? Can I talk to her please?" Maybe he'd have better luck with the fun-loving mindbender. Changeling officers were primarily chosen for their magical power and charisma and consequently were expected to have a heightened awareness of the world around them. They were meant to be the embodiment of the changeling martial ideal; clever, disciplined, charming and ruthless.

Flare hemmed at the question. "She's um... busy. Yes. Very busy. Doing... officer type things. Normal officer type things."

"She is currently headbutting a timber wolf to death." Sugarcoat stated.

He blinked. "What possible reason could she have for doing that?"

"A Lemon Zest reason obviously." Sugarcoat's main talent as a liar was her ability to say even the most blatantly unbelievable and ridiculous things with a completely straight face.

As if on cue a cackling and nasally voice started yelling triumphantly. "Look upon my works ye wooden and despair! I am the one your prophecies spoke of timber wolves! Your worst nightmares made real! The dread trifecta! Termite, fire and woodpecker all in one! I am evil incarnate! Worship me as your Anti-God and you may be spared my unholy wrath! Gah ha ha ha!"

"Oh look, there is a method to her madness. How comforting." Sour Sweet, one of the Queen's favorite spies, cheerfully observed.

Thorax groaned, this wasn't going well. "I didn't want to do this but you leave me no choice. Sugarcoat, Captain Shadowbolt has ordered all Cobalt Guardslings to return to the Hive for retraining on the new laws we will be implementing. As a Siegie you can take control of a pack acting against royal authority. I order you to do that and bring them home with you."

"I can not do that Thorax. Captain Shadowbolt's authority was invalidated when he aided a coup d'etat against Queen Chrysalis. You are an unlawful usurper and guilty of desertion, cowardice in the face of the enemy, multiple counts of insubordination, impersonating a superior, high treason, low treason, providing truthful information to non-changelings, sedition, interference with a royal level operation, assaulting a government official, trespassing in the royal quarters, theft of royal property, damaging vital Hive infrastructure, undermining public health, getting caught, resisting arrest and resisting punishment. Turn yourself into the nearest Guard precinct and await torture, trial, more torture, public trial, the real torture and then execution."

"Her overthrow was supported by the full Court! I am King and she is no longer Queen!"

Flare scoffed. "The full Court? Impossible. I head the Science Guilds remember? Or is the meatsack's weak memory caused by a disease that you've contracted? I have not voted on this fool idea. And never will. So you have no authority."

"The Chief Caretaker and Grand Architect have also not voted on this matter. The vote to replace the Regem Tenebris can not be done by less than a guild's leader. It must be unanimous. Since the entire court was not assembled the vote not only failed but is illegal. Your rule is invalid. Your acts remain treasonous. For the good of the Whole turn yourself in to the proper authorities before more damage is done." Sugarcoat added.

"The entire Hive backs me!"

"Irrelevant. The law is clear and unbending."

"You're prepared to spend the rest of your lives in exile, hiding from everypony and changeling, over a technicality?"

Flare sneered. "Weren't you? How is this different from you running away over your stupid 'they'll give us love if we're nice to them' idea? Hypocrite."

"I didn't want to hurt others! You just want to lord over everypony!"

"Yes! We can be anything therefore we're superior to everything! To deny that is to deny that fire is hot!" The scientist yelled, how could he not see something as easily provable as gravity? They were a great fire and the ponies nothing more than fuel.

"I have a headache and my nose is full of sap." Lemon Zest blurted cheerfully as she trotted over to her teammates.

Thorax groaned in annoyance. "Ugh! just...we're obviously going nowhere with this. Before I leave you to be miserable in the woods can I ask a favor of you? My little clutch-brother Kevin is with you for some reason. Me and Pharynx are worried about him because he's well Kevin. Can you at least let him return home? He's little use to whatever you might plan."

"How touching. I am genuinely moved."

"Thank you, despite our disagreements we are still changelings, part of a grand whole, we need to look out for each other. If we don't lose sight of our shared equinity we can build an even stronger Collective together."

Flare laughed. "No." She stated flatly then cut the tele-link leaving Thorax blinking in shock. Was their loyalty to Chrysalis really greater then common decency? Did they truly hate their prey more than they cared for their own teammate? Had he only won because the Queen's most loyal and elite followers were out reeking havoc?

---

Twenty minutes later:

"And you're certain her Majesty is beaten?" Gloriosa asked, shouting over the winds howling around her. The quartet sent to foalnap the Crystal Imperial Family had fled into the snowy wastes outside the Crystal City after word of Chrysalis' defeat had reached them. Thorax idly wondered if the group that was sent to kill him now hiding in the same place he had hidden before meeting Spike qualified as ironic. Or at least poetic.

"Yes! She fled."

"No sign of her in Maredor then?"

"None. No sign at any of the hive-complexes or fortress-passes. We've put the wasteland outposts on alert. Obsidian Blade wants to send patrols to find her but I don't see the point, 'a changeling that doesn't want to be found', you know how it works."

"Indeed, you were able to elude the Imperial Guard after all. I have little doubt that searching for Her Majesty is futile."

Thorax sighed dejectedly, there it is. "Let's get this over with then, how exactly do you want to kill me for the temerity to have a conscience? Drowning? The arena? Starvation? I know, your bare hooves right?"

"No no no! I want to thank you! I never dreamed of a world without her Highness. No more little ones sent out into the hostile world. No more having to drill them for invasions that may never come. Peace and unity for the world is my fondest wish Thorax."

"Really?"

"Yes! I've always chaffed under her, isn't that right brother? You're the only one I've ever admitted my doubts to."

"True. I wish only I could have given you more comfort. I must say for the first time in years the future promises excitement. The thought of building something that isn't hidden from sight or a terrifying, impregnable fortress of death is a oddly exciting. Lining halls with traps gets tedious fast."

"And I'd like to tell a story that isn't a report on a communities weaknesses for once. And you Pixel?" Violet Blurr, the Swarm's current master lie-spreader (a much sought after title in a species of compulsive liars), noted.

"When I was out among the crystal ponies, looking for weaknesses and hiding spots, I was amazed by how much they talked about you with genuine trust and love Thorax. Not the fear and hate the Queen always said would be there."

"It took a bit of work to get there admittedly. Did you meet Quick Quartz? The stories that old stallion could tell about the Empire's Diamond Age."

"I can vouch for what Pixel said, it was impossible to turn them against you. Touching. Annoying if you're trying to appease your dark master by making the residents of your safe haven want you executed in front of them. But still touching. You should be proud to have such good friends, it's usually easier to gin up lynch mobs."

"That's... nice to hear Violet Blurr. I look forward to welcoming you back home."

"Me too, I miss the muggy hive atmosphere." Timber replied.

"Me three, all the light and hard angles around here are hurting my eyes. Why can't they fill their hive with shadows and mucus like sensible people?" Blurr griped.

"Wonderful! We're all in agreement! Just turn yourselves in to the Imperial Guard and you'll be on the next train home!"

Gloriosa quailed at the order. "I would rather we didn't, if it's all the same to you, your highness."

"Why? You didn't kill anypony did you? Please tell me you didn't kill anypony. I have friends there."

"No no no! Of course not! It's just you can't just have us turn ourselves in."

"It will be okay, they won't hurt you. They know changelings aren't pure evil now."

"Your friends, their leaders, aren't there."

"I have plenty of friends that are still in the city! I already mentioned Quick Quarts but there is also Sergeant Diamond Dust and Mr. Red Beryl the shopkeeper. Oh oh! Ms. Bronzite the blacksmith! If you can't trust a pony that works with blast furnaces who can you trust?"

He would spend hours just standing near the furnaces soaking in the warmth, the Empire was just too cold for him to bare sometimes. Since most non-crystal ponies found the place to be too warm Sunburst believed it was psychosomatic, thanks to his deep rooted changeling cryophobia he could never fully forget the frozen wasteland outside the barrier. The Crystal Heart was supposed to maintain a perfect temperate environment but it's otherwise brilliant creators had made a small mistake in it's creation and hadn't accounted for the reflected sunlight from their crystal buildings raising the temperature. This didn't matter in the end for the crystal ponies themselves as constant exposure to the Crystal Heart's magic transformed them from a splinter faction of earth ponies into a entirely new species with a heightened tolerance of hot and cold owing to their partially mineralized bodies but it did discourage visitors from staying long.

The only ponies that seemed able to stand the place for long periods were it's prince and princess, something Sunburst attributed to all the protective spells Shining Armor had cast on himself and his wife and Flash Sentry blamed on them being too stupid to feel pain, which was also the reason he gave for the crystal ponies famed durability. Sunburst cast air conditioning spells on his room and study and rarely left either while Flash Sentry disappeared into the wilderness for long stretches without explanation.

"Be that as it may sir, it's hard to go against our most deep rooted instincts. What if you're wrong and they betray us? What if they think we lack the protections afforded to you? This is a gamble with our lives, you can't expect us to do it lightly." Timber explained.

Thorax sighed, he couldn't blame them for feeling that way, fear was a changeling's constant companion, their first and only friend. It gnawed at them night and day honing them into the ruthless predators they were known as. Even now it eat away at the back of his mind, he saw Chrysalis' silhouette in the shadowy corners of the Hive (unhelpfully changeling rooms were build to have as many of those as possible, normally it was comforting to them) and worried that his friends would betray him out of jealousy or fear now that he was a king. "If you insist. But please try to make some friends on the way back please. I'm sure you would get along fine with Spike and his friends."

Gloriosa chuckled. "Ponyville eh? I'm sure there are some very welcoming people around there."

He smiled, finally this was going well. He wanted to ask about the votes to cull him from the Nursery but that could wait until they were back home. "There are!"

"Then we have a deal! Don't worry my lord, I've got this! We'll be back and working to improve the Hive in no time!" Gloriosa laughed.

---

"...Doing fine, we're all one big happy family. A few problems here and there, but we'll power through."

"Any sign of you know who?" Spike asked.

Thorax shook his head. "None. We can't check every old safe house or lair but there have been no signs of her anywhere near the main ones. It's got us a bit spooked actually." He wasn't too concerned by the continued lack of clues toward his former Queen's location. Not that he didn't fear what she would do to him when she did show herself, it was a constant presence in his nightmares, it was just that a changeling that didn't want to be found wasn't going to be found, so the lack of evidence was to be expected.

The renegades were troubling, both in their numbers and their skills, but they were dispersed and leaderless. After a flurry of confused chatter in the first days of the Reformation they had gone completely silent, likely realizing that the tele-beetles were compromised. With a plurality of the beetle's population contained within the Hive under the care of the Messengers Guild they could monitor any communication made using them. Without the ability to communicate over long distance or a secure stronghold to operate from there was no way for Chrysalis to support more than a small band of troublemakers without being very easily tracked.

"You think she's got a plan?" Starlight asked worriedly, Chrysalis had sworn painful vengeance upon her after all.

"Does Chrysalis have a plan? Was the world born in flames?" Thorax laughed, she might as well have asked if the sky was blue. "She always has a plan, she always has a hundred plans, the question is what those plans are and how much suffering they will cause."

"I don't suppose you have any idea what any of these hundred plans could be?"

"Nope. Hopefully she's too busy planning your torture to think through how to get there."

Starlight flinched. "That's not as comforting as you seem to think it is."

"Relax, without her army she can't do much, it's been a thousand years sense she had to work alone, she's probably still figuring out how to take care of herself without her retinue to cater to her every whim." He couldn't help but smile at the idea. It faded almost immediately as he felt a sudden flare of anger and hatred from somewhere nearby. He looked around for the source but all he saw were the other outdoor patrons, one group of two unicorn mares at a table and a single earth pony stallion at another.

"Ever notice that everything big started about a thousand years ago? Nightmare Moon, Discord, the Sirens, it's weird none of them got their start five hundred years ago or a hundred or even just twenty. It's weird right? It's not just me?" Spike wondered out loud.

"I got my start as a villain about twenty years ago..."

They sat there in awkward silence for a minute before Thorax attempted to break the newly formed ice. "Do think they'll be done with our food soon?" The waiter had promised that even a changeling's stunted taste buds would delight in the Cafe's dishes and he was eager, although not hopeful, to see if that was true.

"Is it safe for you to eat anything, you know, solid?" Starlight asked, they still knew so little about them. Since the dawn of recorded history changelings had stayed at the periphery, a shadowy race that crept out of dark caves and fetid swamps to steal your happy dreams as you slept. The scholars of the past had debated not the details of their culture or history but whether or not they were sentient or even alive in the first place, the leading theory about them had been for the longest time that they were some sort of undead blight sent to punish mortals for infidelity. This hadn't changed under Chrysalis, her efforts to bring her followers into the spotlight had not involved fighting any misconceptions about her kind. In fact they had made colossal efforts to spread misinformation about themselves to the point that it was widely believed that many of their defeats were simply to make it seam that they were weaker than they were or that they had some great weakness.

"Completely, there's not much we can't digest. What goes in the mouth comes out the legs."

"Is that what the leg-holes were for? That slime you put everywhere?" Spike suddenly regretted all the hoofshakes and hugs he had given Thorax.

"What did you think they did?"

"Honestly? I just figured they were a visible representation for how incomplete you all were without real love." Starlight offered.

Thorax cocked an eyebrow quizzically.

"Look at the world we live in, it's a valid guess."

"Fair enough."

"If... that stuff came out your legs when you where, you know, where does it come out now?" Spike shouldn't have asked such a question before lunch but curiosity was a hard beast to tame.

Thorax pulled his head back and hooked up a glob of slime onto a small crack in the cafe wall. "More than one way to skin a pony!" He chimed as he rubbed the goo around to fill in the crack.

"Check please!" One of the two parties they shared the outdoor cafe with yelled, his appetite gone after that display. The remaining two patrons continued to stare at them unfazed, as they had been doing since they had arrived.

"Sorry, we don't have a lot of nice sayings. Or nice jokes. Or nice pastimes. Or nice anything really. We're working on it though."

"It's okay." Spike soothed.

"It's not okay! I want to help but I feel just as powerless as when I was a drone. A friend of mine is missing and Celestia's family is in turmoil and I'm not sure if I can even help at all."

"Huh, what about Celestia? Sunset and Twilight aren't relatahh!" Spike tried to question that statement when the restaurant's waiter tripped sending the contents of his trey flying directly onto their table, one of the bowls landing directly on his head, splashing Starlight's leg with boiling soup.

"I am so sorry madame and mons-ahh!" The unlucky waiter was attacked by the blue-armored guards before he could finish apologizing.

"Let him go! It was an accident!" Thorax commanded his guards. "Sorry about that, they're trained to be paranoid."

The waiter dusted himself off. "Is there anything I can do for madame and monsieurs to make up my clumsiness?"

"More breadsticks?" Spike asked as he tried to pull the bowl off is head.

"Just some ice please. Who makes soup that hot?" Starlight desperately waved her hoof frantically trying to cool it.

"Poison!" The guardslings immediately returned to restraining the waiter with even more gusto than before somehow.

"She's not poisoned! Let him go now!" Thorax demanded.

"You heard her! She demanded wretched cold, what healthy mind does that?!"

"A pony mind! They don't have the same hangups about cold we do."

The guardslings stared at him in horrified confusion. "They tolerate the purest evil? It is the first crime, the greatest threat to the world! It rots and kills all it touches! You would have to be mad to not see it! If that's true, how have they not destroyed themselves by now?"

"It won't hurt her." Thorax responded tiredly. It was hard to argue a point you neither understood nor believed in.

They stared at him uncertainly, that statement went against everything they knew about the world and against their every instinct.

"You think I understand it?! Just do what you're told!" He barked when they still hadn't released the poor pony. That finally shocked them into letting him go and sheepishly bowing their heads.

"I'm so sorry for them, they were trained by Chrysalis a little too well."

The waiter used his magic to retrieve his platter and the remains of the two bowls, placing the shards of the broken one inside the intact one, as he simultaneously returned his suit and coif to their normal pristine state. "It is no problem your highness, a mere misunderstanding, I'm sure."

"The penalty for spreading cold is death. The only reason they didn't kill you on the spot is that it's supposed to be as painful as possible. We didn't bring the special hoofscrews, because I had them melted down, so they would have to improvise."

All color drained from his face. His belated terror doubled when the guardslings simply grinned nastily in response. "Ahah... yes, thank you sir, I think we can waive the tip for this, yes?"

"I'm supposed to give you advice for food? That's much better than giving you gold. Why didn't either of you tell me before? I hate carrying these jingling pieces of scrap metal. Does it have to be good advice? Something he's never heard before?"

The waiter quietly slipped away from the group as they were distracted explaining to Thorax what a "tip" was. Before he retrieved a bag of ice cubes and a towel from the kitchen he first walked over to the ponies who ordered the soup now splattered all over their follow customer's table. A pair of unicorn mares that had been watching the whole affair in amused silence. One green with a yellow, purple striped mane and the other several different shades of green beneath a dull brown cloak.

"Madames? I'm afraid there will be a delay in your order. The establishment apologizes for the inconvenience."

The uncloaked mare responded while her associate ignored him. "We have eyes garcon." She waved a green hoof at the soup covered table across from them. "Do you have anything useful to add? Or are you just wasting everypony's time?"

He did not react to her jibe, with the restaurants target clientele he had faced much ruder outbursts after all. "Would you care to use the opportunity to change your order?" He had taken some weird orders in his career but two bowls of soup, it was plain they didn't care what kind when they had ordered, boiling hot with nothing else was a new one.

"No, we most certainly will not." She huffed, the very concept that her order, even one she didn't care about, could be wrong on any level offended her.

"As you wish madame. I deeply apologize for the delay my clumsiness caused, I hope it won't effect your opinion of our humble restaurant."

The cloaked mare turned to face him. "There is no need for you to apologize, it wasn't your fault. Try not to let something you couldn't control or prevent ruin the rest of your day. Nopony benefits from that." She spoke soothingly, almost motheringly.

"Thank you madamoiselle, few in your position are so forgiving."

She smiled. "I'm aware. Ponies can be so entitled, can't they? Believing that because somepony started the work ages ago they are entitled to its fruits now. It's almost enough to drive one to madness. But please, don't mind us, you shouldn't neglect the other customers. I assure you they need your services more than we do."

He chuckled. "Work with nobles too, huh?" She nodded with a knowing smile but an almost disappointed look in her eyes. "If you need anything while you wait don't hesitate to ask."

At that he took a bow and trotted inside, carefully staying out of reach of the guards, still glaring daggers at him, as he did so. He paused briefly to scrutinize the spot where he had tripped, he must have walked over this exact spot a thousand times and there was nothing there he could have tripped on, so why had he stumbled?

"You were unusually kind to that mammal, mother. As in at all." The only kindness Chrysalis usually gave to her prey was the sweet release of death.

The cloaked mare waved her hoof dismissively. "No sense being mean child, he deserves to enjoy his last few days on this earth after all." She returned to staring at Thorax and company, smiling faintly at the feelings of disgruntlement she felt from the Cobalt Guard surrounding them and Thorax's obliviousness to it. His rule was even more fragile than she had dared hope. "Don't worry, you'll get to have your fun soon enough."

The disguised Flare's eyes lit up with eager malevolence. "Promise?" She had come up with so many wonderfully nasty ideas since her exile and had so few test subjects to use them on.

"Of course, I always keep my promises little one." The changeling Queen smiled lightly, all was going to plan. Soon all her promises would be kept. Not all in the way she originally meant but kept all the same.

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[Starlight Nova]

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